- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- Pont y Pair, Betws-y-Coed
- Date
- (?) 1798
- Medium and Support
- Graphite on wove paper (watermark: 1794 / J WHATMAN, partly cut)
- Dimensions
- 16.2 × 22.4 cm, 6 ⅜ × 8 ¾ in
- Object Type
- Outline Drawing
- Subject Terms
- Bridges and Weirs; North Wales; Waterfall Scenery
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1331
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 291iii as 'Pont-y-Pair, Bettws-Y-Coed, Caernarvonshire'; '1801'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001 and 2018
Provenance
Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833); his posthumous sale, Christie's, 26–28 June and 1–2 July 1833 (day and lot number not known); bought by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851); accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest, 1856
Bibliography
Finberg, 1909, vol.2, p.1240 as 'Pont-y-Pair, Caernarvonshire'; Girtin and Loshak, 1954, p.82
Place depicted
Other entries in The 1798 Welsh Tour:
Sketches and Subsequent Watercolours
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Southill Park, Bedfordshire
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Tate, London
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
National Museum of Wales, Cardiff
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
Private Collection, North Wales
Caernarfon: A Street Scene with Plas Mawr
Tate, London
Caernarfon Castle, from the River Seiont
British Museum, London
Caernarfon Castle, from the River Seiont
Williamson Art Gallery & Museum, Birkenhead
The Cain Falls (Pistyll Cain), near Dolgellau
British Museum, London
The Cain Falls (Pistyll Cain), near Dolgellau
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery
A Mountain View, near Beddgelert
British Museum, London
A Bridge over the Glaslyn, near Beddgelert
British Museum, London
Pont Seiont, Looking Towards Mynydd Mawr (Big Mountain)
British Museum, London
Pont Seiont, Looking Towards Mynydd Mawr (Big Mountain)
Private Collection
Pont y Pair, Betws-y-Coed
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum, Loan from George and Patti White
Llyn Tegid (Bala Lake), Looking towards Cadair Idris
Private Collection
A View of Hills and a River, Probably in North Wales
British Museum, London
Denbigh Castle and the Vale of Clwyd
British Museum, London
An Unidentified Landscape, Possibly the Vale of Clwyd
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River; Studies of Seated Figures
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Valle Crucis Abbey: From the Cloister Looking Towards the Dormitory
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey: The Chapter House, from the South West
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A River Scene, Probably the Dee near Corwen
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
The Cloisters of Chester Cathedral
Private Collection
The Red Castle, from Hawk Lake, with a Distant View of Shrewsbury
Private Collection
Wroxeter: The Roman Wall
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum, Loan from George and Patti White
The Old Severn Bridge at Bridgnorth
British Museum, London
Hereford Cathedral, from across the River Wye
Private Collection
The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
Private Collection
The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
Private Collection
An Unidentified Valley, Probably in North Wales
Southill Park, Bedfordshire
Cadair Idris, from the Estuary near Barmouth
Private Collection
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About this Work
This sketch of the early seventeenth-century bridge over the river Llugwy at Betws-y-Coed was very likely made on Girtin’s visit to North Wales in the summer of 1798, and it formed the basis for two studio watercolours (TG1332 and TG1333). Generally Girtin’s landscape sketches from the 1798 tour, as opposed to his architectural views, took the form of on-the-spot colour studies, but, as with the view of the nearby Ogwen Falls (TG1329), the artist here used a soft piece of graphite to fix the general forms of the landscape, together with the contrasting textures of tree, rock and water. Presumably, the weather and light conditions under which Girtin viewed the falls did not warrant the extra labour involved in producing a colour sketch, and instead he made a thoroughly utilitarian drawing in which an economical use of careful hatching, rather than fine draughtsmanship, recorded all that was needed to later create finished watercolours.
In contrast to the date of 1798 given here, Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) and David Loshak in their 1954 catalogue of Girtin’s work suggested that this sketch was made in 1799, though in this case not because they believed that it was executed on one of a number of unsubstantiated tours they had the artist undertaking, but because they thought that it was a ‘later repetition’ of a lost drawing (Girtin and Loshak, 1954, pp.82 and 174). The stylistic evidence they adduced to make the case for what they called a ‘studio rifacimento of the original outdoor sketch’ does not stand up to close scrutiny, however, not least because it is based on comparisons with two misidentified drawings from another tour, to the Lake District, that did not actually take place (TG1329 and TG1626). However, we do know that Girtin made copies of his on-the-spot pencil drawings, as the examples of Middleham Village, with the Castle Beyond (TG1620) and Chelsea Reach, Looking towards Battersea (TG1601) prove, and there is indeed some evidence that this could be the case here. The first owner of the work is known to have been Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833), who, in addition to commissioning copies of the compositions of John Robert Cozens (1752–97) from Girtin and his contemporary Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), is known to have collected the artist’s pencil sketches. These include another sketch made on the Welsh tour of 1798 (TG1313) as well as a view of Aylesbury that is likely to have been copied from an on-the-spot drawing (TG0369a). The fact that this view of the bridge at Betws-y-Coed was executed on a piece of Whatman wove paper, as the visible watermark attests, the support generally employed in the Monro School drawings, rather than on one of the coarse cartridge papers Girtin used for his sketches on the 1798 tour, suggests the possibility that it was copied at a later date, though as long as the ‘original’ remains untraced this cannot be substantiated.
1798 - 1799
Pont y Pair, Betws-y-Coed
TG1332
1798 - 1799
Pont y Pair, Betws-y-Coed
TG1333
(?) 1798
The Ogwen Falls
TG1329
(?) 1798
The Ogwen Falls
TG1329
(?) 1800
Mulgrave Park and Castle, from near Epsyke Farm
TG1626
(?) 1801
Middleham Village, with the Castle Beyond
TG1620
(?) 1801
Chelsea Reach, Looking towards Battersea
TG1601
(?) 1798
Caernarfon: A Street Scene with Plas Mawr (The Great House)
TG1313
1798 - 1799
The Market Square at Aylesbury
TG0369a